This Day in 1913 in The Record: March 17, 1913

Monday, March 17, 1913. Professional baseball remains illegal on Sundays in New York State, but some sports enthusiasts in the legislature want to change that. As The Record reports, those reformers are outnumbered, or at least outmaneuvered, by those who want to keep the ban without bothering to enforce it.

Our Albany correspondent writes that the ban really impacts only the highest levels of professional ball.

"The National League clubs will not do battle on the grounds in New York on the Sabbath, but there will be hundreds of other contests in the metropolis every Sunday. While the lots on which they are held may not be fenced in and tickets sold outright, a collection will be taken, so that in reality everybody who attends the exhibitions will pay his way just the same. In the smaller settlements this identical practice is followed, while it is an established fact that in some cities professional baseball is advertised and the system of conducting the pastime is no different on Sunday than it is on Monday or at any other time. Baseball is allowed on the Sabbath and that's all there is to it."

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Locally, whether Troy's New York State League club plays home games on Sundays has depended on the attitude of city government and the pressure applied by church or neighborhood groups. Sunday baseball has been opposed not just as a desecration of the Christian Sabbath, but also as a noise nuisance and a violation of everyone's right to a day of rest once a week.

According to our writer, the Sunday baseball question "is debated every session, but in the end it is permitted to go by default, and there is every likelihood that this year will be no different than any other."

The latest bill to legalize Sunday baseball was referred back to the Internal Affairs committee last week and isn't expected to emerge again. "The legislators don't like it," our reporter explains, "particularly those who represent rural districts, where it is said that the people are not so liberal in their views as they are accredited with being in the cities.

"Some of [the legislators] were willing to concede that they had no deep objections to it personally, but they raised their hands in horror, declaring that voting on it meant ruin to their political hopes. The Sunday desecration topic is a delicate one in the county places, of this there is no doubt, and for a legislator to act in a way that would even suggest that he did not have reverential regard for the Sabbath would be hazardous."